Bourque, a Canadiens forward who has been suspended for elbowing before, didn't willfully engage with anyone, like everyone involved with the line brawl. He didn't get carried away during a fight, like PK Subban. He threw a fly-by elbow to the head of a player who'd scrapped with somebody else a few seconds earlier.

You can write the other stuff off as "hockey players being hockey players," if you want, or use the logistical nightmare of scheduling a dozen hearings (give or take) before Tuesday's Game 4. But the league signing off on this? Really?

Think of it this way: of all the silliness that went on, only Bourque's elbow to Cory Conacher's head is the sort of thing the league has actively attempted to legislate against. They're not focused on hearings for two-handed slashes, like the one Ryan White delivered, or shooting pucks at opponents, like Josh Gorges. They're trying to punish deliberate or reckless acts that lead to injuries, particularly brain-related ones. That was Bourque on Sunday night.

Couple that with the fact that Eric Gryba and Justin Abdelkader have already been suspended for hits that were careless, rather than intentional, and the non-suspension makes even less sense. Last postseason, Penguins winger James Neal, as Greg Wyshynski noted, "was given a game in a contentious series for intent last postseason. But nothing for Bourque."

Game 4 on Tuesday, after all that, is likely to be relatively calm. The players, Montreal in particular, have to realize that a playoff series is it at stake. But Bourque, more than anyone else, needed to pay the price for Sunday night, and he didn't.